Using C++ in Embedded Systems – Applying C++11/14/17/20

Overview:
Over the years, the object-orientated programming turned out to be a sound and battle-hardened way of working in system development. Traditionally C has been the dominating programming language in the embedded system context. This training intends to introduce C++ as the common extension of C when applying object-oriented embedded system development. Since C++ encloses C, this training takes us from C to C++ in a natural way and looks under the hood of how C++ is implemented. This is especially valuable to comprehend when applying C++ in an embedded resource limited environment. The recent years the C++ standard has been undergoing a few revisions – a.k.a. as C++11, C++14, C++17, C++20 – and a new one is on its way, C++23. This course addresses subjects brought in with these revisions that are especially useful like high performance memory management, concurrency making use of a multicore environment, and bare-metal close to the hardware programming.

Goal/Benefits:

The major objective of this class is that you shall be able to use C++ in a “correct way”.
♦ Introduce C++ as an object-oriented language alternative in an embedded system context
♦ Show the similarities – and differences – with the C language
♦ Comprehend different memory management strategies – especially the move semantics introduced with C++11
♦ Look under the hood and understand what different paradigms in C++ leads to in machine code
♦ Discuss about using constexpr to get things done already at compile-time –the replacement for macros and hardcoded literals
♦ To use templates to achieve type safe high order abstractions for bare-metal close to the hardware programming – memory mapped I/O as well as interrupts – especially the variadic templates introduced with C++11
♦ Provide some useful design patterns especially applicable in an embedded context
♦ A few exercises to practice some concepts

Audience/Participants

This training is aimed C++- programmers who intend to start using C++ in an embedded system context.

Previous Knowledge

The course requires basic knowledge in C++ programming, corresponding to our trainings

”C++ Level 1 – An Odyssey of C++: Core Language” and

”C++ Level 2 – An Odyssey of C++: Standard Library”.

Practical Exercises

During the training you will practice the presented concepts in a few exercises. We will use the open and free integrated development environment from Eclipse.

Outline:

1. What’s an Embedded System?

• Simple Definition
• Some Milestones
• Characteristics
• Why using C++?

2. Comparison with C

• C: A subset of C++ – almost
• Performance
• Added “Free” Functionality
• Why not using C++?

3. Classes

• Member Variables
  • Instance variables
  • Class variables
• Member Functions
  • Instance functions
  • Class functions
• Implicit Methods
  • Constructor
    • Initialization
    • Uniform Initialization with Initializer Lists
    • Delegation
  • Destructor
  • Copy assignment operator
• Rvalue references and Move Semantics – avoiding unnecessary deep copy
• struct in C++
• Package/Namespace

4. Inheritance

• Realization
• Performance
• Multiple Inheritance
• Virtual Inheritance

5. Polymorphism

• Virtual Function
• Virtual Destructor
• Implementation
• Runtime Type Information, RTTI
• Performance

6. Templates

• Function Template
• Class Template
• Variadic Templates
• Code Bloat
• Implementation Strategies
• Template versus Inheritance?

7. Error Handling

• Exception Handling
• Performance Issues
• Implementation

8. Inline Code

• When to Use?
• Strategies

9. Start-up

• System Start-up
• The C Part
• The C++ Part

10. Standard Library

• Standard Template Library, STL
• iostream Library
• STL Major Extensions due to Modern C++:
  • Rvalue References – Move semantics
  • Variadic Templates
  • Concurrency

11. Memory Management

• The C++ Memory Model
  • Standardized Word Widths – The stdint-types
  • Strongly Typed Enumerations
  • Atomic Types and their Operations
• constexpr
• std::byte
• Standard Library Allocator API
• Strategies
• Variables
• Placement new
• User Defined Memory Management

12. Interoperation between C and C++

• Name Mangling
• Static Initialization
• Dynamic Memory
• structContents
  • POD – Plain Old Data type

13. Design Patterns

• RAII – Resource Acquisition Is Initialization
• Memory-mapped I/O
• Interrupt
• Initialization of Static Objects